How To Pin A Note To The Top In macOS

The Notes app in macOS has received some impressive new features in the last few major OS updates. You can password protect notes, apply formatting to the text, and insert images, tables, and checklists. Its iOS counterpart has these same features with the added bonus that you can lock and unlock notes with TouchID. The notes app on macOS has no such feature but it does have a neat feature that lets you pin a note to the top. You can use it to turn your notes into sticky notes on macOS.

Pin A Note To The Top

This is a feature in the stock Notes app on macOS. Open the Notes app and select a note inside a folder. On the menu bar, go to Windows>Float Selected Note. This will separate the note into its own window and pin it to the top of all other apps you have open. If you click a different app window and bring it into focus, it will not send the floating note to the back.

If you double-click a note in the Notes app, it will separate into its own window however, it will not be pinned to the top. There is no keyboard shortcut or gesture for pinning a note to the top. You have to use the app menu to pin a note. If you have a note open in its own window, you can select it i.e. bring it into focus, and go to Window>Float Selected Note to pin it to the top. A note doesn’t have to be docked in the app in order for it to be pinned.

To unpin a note from the top, go to the Window menu item and unselect the Float Selected Note option. You can drag the note around and position it anywhere on your screen. Additionally, you can resize a note to a size that suits your screen’s size.

This is a somewhat obscure feature of the Notes app and it’s not clear how old it is. It may have been part of macOS for ages or it might have been added in one of the recent versions. Regardless, it’s a neat way to put a make-shift sticky note on your desktop. Notes, as you probably know, aren’t just text based anymore. You can add images to them and pin a note to effectively pin the image to the top of your desktop.